Kaputt

by Curzio Malaparte

  After a long absence of more than a year on the Russian front, in the Ukraine, Poland and Finland, I finally returned one morning to the golf links of the Acquasanta. Sitting in a corner of the terrace I was overcome by a feeling of discomfort and unrest as I watched the players as slowly and uncertainly they moved along the distant brow of the rolling hills that slope gently toward the red arches of the aqueducts, against a background of pines and cypresses that surround the tombs of the Horatii and Curiatii. It was a November morning in 1942, the sun was warm and a damp wind brought a smell of seaweed and grass from the sea. An invisible plane was humming in the azure heavens and the sound rained down from the lofty sky like resonant pollen.

  I had just returned to Italy a few days before after having lain long in a Helsinki hospital where I had undergone a serious operation that had exhausted my strength. I still walked with a cane and was pale and emaciated. Small groups of players were beginning to stroll back toward the clubhouse; the beauties of the Colonna Palace, the dandies of the Excelsior Bar, the cold and ironic young secretaries from the Chigi Palace, passed by and smiled greetings,- some were surprised to see me: they did not know that I had returned to Italy, they thought I was still in Finland. Seeing me so white and worn, they lingered a moment to inquire how I was, whether it was very cold in Finland, whether I would be staying in Rome for some time or whether I was preparing to return soon. My Martini shook in my hand, I was still so weak. I answered "Yes" or "No" and looked in their faces and laughed deep inside—until Paola came and we found a secluded table near a window.

  "Nothing has changed in Italy, has it?" asked Paola.

  "Oh, everything has changed," I said. "It's incredible how everything has changed."

  "Strange," said Paola, "I had not noticed it."

  She was looking at the door, and suddenly she exclaimed, "Here comes Galeazzo! Do you think he, too, has changed?"

  I answered, "Galeazzo has changed. Everybody has changed. Everybody is awaiting with terror the great Kapparoth, the Kaputt, the great Cat."

  "What?" Paola exclaimed opening her eyes wide.

  Galeazzo came in. He lingered a moment on the threshold, and rubbing his hands, he laughed pursing his lips. He raised his chin in acknowledging the greetings; opening his eyes wide with a broad cordial smile that did not unseal his lips, he carefully looked over the ladies and glanced swiftly at the men. Then, pushing out his chest and drawing in his stomach so as to try to conceal the fact that he had grown fat, he crossed the room. Still rubbing his hands and turning this way and that, he took a seat at a corner table where he was joined at once by Cyprienne and Marcello del Drago, and Blasco d'Ayeta. Voices that had dropped to soft whispers when Ciano had appeared in the door, rose again as everybody began talking loudly across the tables as if they were calling to each other from opposite banks of a river. Everybody addressed each other by name and hailed acquaintances across the room, glancing at Galeazzo to make sure that he had heard and noticed them; that was the sole purpose of the loud questions, the festive little shrieks, the smiles and fleeting glances. From time to time Galeazzo raised his face and took part in the general conversation. He spoke in a loud voice, gazing intently now at this, and now at that girl. His eyes never rested on the men, as if there were only women in the room. He smiled, winked cunningly and made slight signs with an upraised eyebrow or with his fleshy, protruding lips. The women responded to his coquetry by laughing too loudly, bending over the tables with their heads tilted to one side so they could hear every word, all the time watching each other with jealous intensity.

  At the table next to us sat Lavinia, Gianna, Georgette, Anne Marie von Bismarck, Prince Otto von Bismarck and two young secretaries from the Chigi Palace.

  "Everybody looks happy this morning," Anne Marie von Bismarck said. "Has something happened?"

  "How can anything new happen in Rome?" I replied.

  "I'm new in Rome," said Filippo Anfuso, approaching the von Bismarcks' table. Filippo Anfuso had arrived that very morning from Budapest where he had recently been sent to replace Giuseppe Talamo, the Minister at the Royal Legation.

  "Oh, Filippo!" Anne Marie exclaimed.

  "Filippo! Filippo!" voices called from everywhere. Anfuso with his usual embarrassed air turned with a smile to greet this or that person,- he moved his head as if he had a boil on his neck and, as usual, he did not know what to do with his hands that now were on his hips, then stuck in his pockets and then let hang limply by his sides. He looked wooden and newly varnished, and the blackness of his over-glossy hair seemed excessive even for a man like him, even for a Minister. He laughed; his eyes, those beautiful, almost mysterious eyes glittered, and as he laughed he flickered his eyelids in his usual languid and sentimental way. His knees, that were bent slightly inward and almost touched each other, were his weakness about which he secretly suffered. "Filippo! Filippo!" voices called from everywhere. I noticed that Galeazzo had stopped in the middle of a sentence and, as his eyes fixed on Anfuso his face darkened. He was jealous of Anfuso. I was surprised that he was still jealous of Filippo. Ciano's knees were also his weak point, being slightly knock-kneed himself. The only thing that Galeazzo and Filippo had in common were knees that touched each other.

  "Americans landed yesterday in Algiers," Anfuso said, seating himself between Anne Marie and Lavinia at the von Bismarcks' table. "That's why everybody is so happy today."

  "Shut up, Filippo! Don't be naughty!" Anne Marie said.

  "In fairness, I should add that people were equally as happy the day Rommel reached El Alamein," Anfuso said.

  In June four months earlier, when the Italian and German troops had rushed into El Alamein and seemed about to capture Alexandria and Cairo at any moment, Mussolini, in the uniform of a Marshal of the Empire, had hurriedly started by air for the Egyptian front, carrying in his luggage the famous "Sword of Islam" that Italo Balbo, the Governor of Libya, had solemnly presented to him a few years before. The Governor of Egypt whom the Duce was about to install in Cairo with such pomp was a member of Mussolini's suite. Serafino Mazzolini had been appointed Governor of Egypt. Formerly he had been Italian Minister to Cairo, and he, too, had started hurriedly by air for the El Alamein front accompanied by an army of secretaries, women typists, interpreters, experts in Arabian matters and a brilliant staff of officers many of whom were already quarreling and backbiting among themselves and filling the Libyan desert with their jealous and vainglorious complaints. They were lovers, husbands, brothers and cousins of Ciano's favorites along with some magnificent, proud, melancholy specimens from among Edda's discarded favorites. The Libyan war, said Anfuso, had not brought any luck to the favorites from Edda's and Galeazzo's harems. Whenever the British in the vicissitudes of the desert moved forward, some of those grand personages invariably fell into their hands. Meanwhile news had begun to filter back to Rome from the El Alamein front about Mussolini's impatience to make his triumphal entry into Alexandria and Cairo, and how Rommel was so furious with Mussolini that he refused to meet him.

  "What has he come down here for? " Rommel had asked. "Who sent him here?"

  Tired of waiting, Mussolini, silent and black, had passed up and down before the unfortunate, pale, silent Governor of Egypt. In Rome the wounds that the appointment of Serafino Mazzolini as Governor of Egypt had inflicted on the courtiers of the Chigi and Colonna palaces, had still been open and fresh; for many people the problem of the moment had been not how to conquer Egypt but how to prevent Serafino from reaching Cairo. Everybody put their trust in the British. Ciano, along with the others, although for different reasons, had not been satisfied with the way things were going and had made a show of ironic skepticism. "Oh, yes! In Cairo!" he had said, implying that Mussolini would never get there. Actually what had comforted Galeazzo during the many disappointments of the El Alamein victory days, had been—according to Anfuso's account—Mussolini's absence from Rome, even if it were only of a few days' duration. As Ciano had put it, "At last he was out of the
way!"

  "The relations between Ciano and Mussolini do not seem to be very good even today," I remarked. "At least that's what I have heard in Stockholm."

  "Perhaps he would like to see his father-in-law suffer a minor defeat," Anfuso said in French, affecting a Marseille accent.

  "You are not implying that the war to them is merely a family affair?" Anne Marie said.

  "Alas!" Anfuso exclaimed, sighing loudly and raising his beautiful eyes to the ceiling.

  "Cyprienne looks bored today," Georgette said.

  "Cyprienne has too much sense of humor to find Galeazzo amusing," said Anfuso.

  "That's very true! In the long run Galeazzo is boring," Anne Marie said.

  "On the contrary, I find him very amusing and witty," said Prince Otto von Bismarck.

  "He certainly is much more amusing than von Ribbentrop," said Filippo. "Have you heard what von Ribbentrop says about Galeazzo?"

  "Of course I have," Otto von Bismarck replied uneasily.

  "No, you haven't," Anne Marie said. "Tell us, Filippo!"

  "Von Ribbentrop says that Galeazzo would be a great Foreign Minister if he would not meddle in foreign affairs."

  "Considering that he is Minister of Foreign Affairs I must say that he meddles very little in them," I said. "His fault is meddling too much in domestic politics."

  "Quite true," Anfuso said. "That's all he does from morning till night. His waiting room has become a branch office of the Home Office and of the Fascist party."

  "He is more concerned about the appointment of a prefect or of a provincial party secretary," said one of the two young secretaries from the Chigi Palace, "than he is about the appointment of an ambassador."

  "Muti was one of his creatures," added the other secretary.

  "But now they hate each other like poison," Anfuso said. "I believe the break came because of Count Magistrates appointment as Minister to Sofia."

  "What business was it of Muti's?" von Bismarck asked.

  "Ciano directed the home politics and Muti the foreign policy," Anfuso replied.

  "Galeazzo is a strange man," I said. "He is under the delusion that he is very popular in America and Britain."

  "That's the least of his troubles," said Anfuso. "He even imagines that he is very popular in Italy!"

  "What excellent imagination!" von Bismarck said.

  "For my part, I'm very fond of him," Anne Marie said.

  "That's because you believe that he will change the course of the war!" Anfuso said blushing with a strange air.

  Anne Marie smiled and looked at Anfuso, "You're very fond of him? Aren't you, Filippo?"

  "Of course I'm very fond of him," said Anfuso. "But what's the use? If I were his mother, I would be trembling for him."

  "Why aren't you trembling for him, if you are so fond of him?" Anne Marie asked.

  "I have no time. I'm too busy trembling for myself."

  "What is the matter with all of you today? " Lavinia asked. "Is it the war that makes you so jittery?"

  "The war?" said Anfuso. "What war? The people don't give a damn about the war. Haven't you seen the posters that Mussolini has had hung in every shop and pasted on all the street walls?" They were large posters in the national colors with only four words in large letters: WE ARE AT WAR. "He was right to remind us about it," Anfuso added, "because nobody remembers it."

  "The state of mind of the Italian people during this war is extremely odd," Prince von Bismarck said.

  "I wonder whom Mussolini would hold responsible," Anfuso said, "if the war should take a bad turn."

  "The Italian people," I said.

  "No. Mussolini never holds many heads responsible for anything. He needs only one head, a head that seems to be made for that special purpose. He would hold Galeazzo responsible. What other use could there be for Galeazzo? Mussolini keeps him there for that special purpose. Look at his head! Doesn't it seem to be made just for that?"

  We all turned our eyes on Count Ciano. His head was round, a little swollen, and too large. "A little too big for his age," said Anfuso.

  "You are unbearable, Filippo," Anne Marie said.

  "I thought you were Galeazzo's friend," I said to Anfuso.

  "Galeazzo needs no friends and does not want any. He does not know what to do with them. He despises them and treats them like menials," Anfuso said and added with a laugh, "He is satisfied with Mussolini's friendship."

  "Mussolini is very fond of him, isn't he?" Georgette asked.

  "Oh yes, very!" Anfuso said. "In February 1941, during that wretched campaign in Greece, Galeazzo sent for me at Bari to discuss matters concerning the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For Ciano it was a very difficult moment. He was then a lieutenant colonel in a bomber squadron, at the Palese Air Field near Bari. He was very annoyed with Mussolini. He called him il Testone—the blockhead. Shortly before that a conference had taken place in Bordighera where Mussolini had met Franco and Serrano Suner. Galeazzo, who had been ready to start, was left behind at the last moment. With a suitcase still in his hand, he said to me, 'Mussolini hates me.' That same evening Edda called to tell him that Fabrizio, their first born, was seriously ill. Galeazzo was very much upset by the news. He wept and said, 'He hates me! There's nothing I can do—he hates me!' Later he added, 'That man has always brought me bad luck.'"

  "Bad luck?" Lavinia said with a laugh. "God in Heaven, men are so vain!"

  "If I am not mistaken, Galeazzo was on the point of resigning," Gianna said.

  "Galeazzo will never leave of his own accord," Anfuso said. "He is too fond of power. He fondles his ministerial seat as if it were a mistress. He trembles at the thought of being thrown out on a moment's notice."

  "In those days in Bari," I said, "Galeazzo had another reason for being afraid. That was the time when Hitler, at one of their meetings at the Brenner Pass, handed Mussolini Himmler's report on Galeazzo."

  "Wasn't it more of a report on Isabelle Colonna?" asked Anne Marie.

  "How do you know about it?" Otto von Bismarck asked uneasily.

  "All of Rome talked about it for months," Anne Marie said.

  "It was a bad moment for Galeazzo," Anfuso said. "Even his most intimate friends turned their backs on him. Blasco d'Ayeta happened to tell me on that occasion that between Galeazzo and Isabelle, he would have sided with Isabelle."

  I answered, "And between Hitler and Isabelle? Obviously it was clearly not a question of having to choose between Count Galeazzo Ciano and Princess Isabelle Colonna, though most people thought so. One morning Galeazzo asked me to come to his house. The hour was unusual, about eight o'clock. I found him in his bath. He got out of the tub, and while he was drying himself, said, 'Von Ribbentrop has stabbed me in the back. Himmler is behind von Ribbentrop. They have asked for my head in that report. If Mussolini presents my head to von Ribbentrop, he will reveal himself publicly as the coward that he is!' Then, pressing both his hands on his naked belly, he added: 'I must lose some weight.' When he dried himself, he dropped his bath towel and standing stark naked in front of a mirror, began to grease his hair with a bunch of grass he had sent to him from Shanghai that is used in China as brilliantine. 'A good thing that I am not the Foreign Minister of the Chinese Republic,' he said. 'You know China as well as I do. It is a delightful country, but think what would happen to me there if I were to fall into disfavor.' He began to describe to me Chinese tortures that he had witnessed in a Peking street. The victim, tied to a pole, was stripped with a penknife piece by piece of all his flesh, except for his nerves and his arteries and veins. The man became a kind of trellis made of bones, nerves and blood vessels through which the sun could shine and the flies could buzz. In that way the victim could live for several days. Galeazzo lingered with masochistic complacency on the most horrible details and laughed merrily. I felt the sensual pleasure he took in being cruel and also his fear and his powerless hatred. 'Things are not so different in Italy,' he said. 'Mussolini has devised a torture even more cruel than the Chinese—a kic
k in the behind.' As he said it, he touched his buttocks. 'It's not the kick that hurts,' he said. 'It's the waiting, the continuous, exasperating waiting from day to day, from hour to hour, from minute to minute.' In jest I remarked that he and I both had looked ahead and that luckily we were provided with fat buttocks. Galeazzo's face grew dark and, feeling himself, he asked, 'Do you really think my behind is fat?' He was deeply concerned about it. Later, while he was dressing, he said, 'Mussolini will never present my head to anyone. He is afraid. He is perfectly well aware that all Italians are with me. The Italians know that I am the only man in Italy who dares to stand up to Mussolini.'

  "It was a delusion, but it was not for me to disillusion him, and I kept quiet. Even as far back as that he was sincerely convinced that he was standing up to Mussolini. Actually, Galeazzo trembles from morning till night in fear of that kick in the behind. Face to face with Mussolini, Galeazzo is like everybody else, like all of us—a frightened menial. He always said 'Yes' to Mussolini. But behind Mussolini's back, he has the courage of a lion and is afraid of nothing. If Mussolini had his mouth in the back of his head, Galeazzo would not hesitate in placing his head between his fangs like a lion-tamer in a circus. Sometimes, when he is talking about the war, Mussolini and Hitler, he says the most amusing things. No one can deny that he has wit or intelligence. Sometimes he evaluates a political situation like a man who knows what he and others are about. Once I asked him how he thought the war would probably end."